


sleeping all these demons away

by ladanse



Series: apparitions [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, and a little bit of DID, and skywalker, ft. vader, pain train no. 2, this is a companion piece to ghost of you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 07:01:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7925119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladanse/pseuds/ladanse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The apprentice lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sleeping all these demons away

**Author's Note:**

> hello! here's the promised companion piece :)
> 
> title also from ella henderson's "ghost"

_The apprentice lives._

 

Vader cannot even bring himself to strangle the miserable rookie who caught the wrong ship in the tractor beam and lost them the engagement. His men are confused, he knows; first he gave a no-kill order on the rebel ship, and now this. He doesn't care. His thoughts are buzzing, livelier than they have been in nearly seventeen years.

 

"Clear the deck," he tells the Admiral, and kneels in front of the holotable.

 

For a moment, from the white-noise mountaintop of blissful blankness that the Dark Side has granted him, he hears Skywalker, crying for his padawan.

 

But the Emperor appears in front of him, and his familiar aura of quiet menace soothes Vader's thoughts.

 

The Emperor agrees that the padawan is an important asset, but Vader slips - he says too much, acts too eager. He mentions Kenobi, though he knows his master's distaste for his obsession with the old fool, and Palpatine reassigns him. Another Inquistor will be dispatched to deal with the apprentice.

 

Good, Vader thinks savagely. Skywalker screams, _she left us_ , and Vader lets Skywalker's hatred drug him with power.

 

*******************

 

Later, he finds himself rubbing his unfeeling left hand over his right mech, the only non-Empire commissioned limb on his body. When he realizes what he is doing, he stares at the mech and then opens up its maintenance panel. Inside the slats where his wristbone once lay is a small braid, hooked throughout with Jedi beads. He does not know why he still has it.

 

He reaches to rip it out, but Skywalker stops him.

 

  
_She left us_ , Vader says, irritated.

 

  
_Yes_ , says Skywalker, far away. _Leave it in_.

 

  
_Next time we see her_ -

 

  
_Of course. We will kill her_ , Skywalker says, his pain and fear flaring into rage.

 

But they close the panel in his arm, and the beads remain untouched.


End file.
